By Michael Hill
Albany, NY (AP) – For decades, a sculpture in New York child labor laws allowed the 11 -year -old children to participate in the secular tradition of a paper route.
Return the papers to suburban hedges, cycle through snow grains, dodge dogs and stiffen for advice has become a rite of passage for generations of young people.
But a modification of the law carried out discreetly via the state budget this month clearly shows that the work is now not authorized for anyone under 14 years of age. This decision was reported for the first time by politico.
The change occurs even if the boys and paper girls have above all followed the path of telephone cabins, miméographer machines and their urban “newsie” ancestors who shouted “Ext!” Extra!” At the corner of the street.
While many adolescents took paper routes like jobs after school, this became more rare decades while more and more daily newspapers went to deliveries early in the morning. The newspapers are now increasingly online and tend to count on adults with cars to make home deliveries, according to industry observers.
“The need for children’s workforce to go and throw newspapers on Stoops is just one thing in the past,” said lawyer Allan Bloom, an employment expert at Proskauer’s office.
Legislators have changed as part of a broader update of child labor laws. Bloom compared it to a “cleaning” while the legislators rationalized the process of location of minors and increased sanctions for violation of child labor laws.
Diane Kennedy, president of the New York News Publishers Association, said that she was not aware of any New York Journal using young people.
Christopher Page recalled to bought his first guitar on the gains from a paper road started in the late 1970s in the suburbs of Clifton Park, north of Albany.
“I just had a 10 wardrobe that I destroyed,” said page. “It was really rain or shiny, I cycle. Or even in winter, I always had a bicycle in the snow through all the nests of the hen and the ice. ”
When dogs pursued her on his bike, page moved them away with his shoulder bag full of newspapers.
At 13, Jon Sorensen delivered the Syracuse Herald-American on Sunday with his 11-year-old brother in the town of Finger Lakes of Owasco at the back of their mother’s Chevy’s trolley.
“It was at the time when the papers were papers – a lot of sections and a lot of weight,” recalls Sorensen, now 68 years old and Kennedy’s partner. “I remember that snow.
Sorensen stayed in the newspaper sector in adulthood, covering the state government and politics for articles such as New York Daily News and The Buffalo News.
“The most difficult part of the work was not the delivery of the newspaper, it was collection,” recalls Sorensen. “It was not always easy to make people pay.”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
